WHAT ARE SEARCH ENGINES?
Search engines are software applications which help in the search and retrieval of information found online. Online tools like search engines can be compared to virtual personal assistants because they help one get desired content over the internet using his relevant search query or keyword.
That can be summed up as the most complex algorithms and automated procedures by which a search engine crawls, indexes, and ranks web pages so that the search engine provides the most relevant results for users. The most notable one is Google, followed by Bing, Yahoo, and the Baidu, which the Chinese widely use.
This is pretty brief summary of how the search engine works:
Crawling: Search engines utilize automated bots that are called crawlers or spiders. These crawling bots, or spiders, will systematically surf the web and crawl for web pages. The crawling spider from one page fetches the details of each of those related pages.
Indexing: The web crawlers are constantly encountering web pages. This information gathered is stored into a huge database referred to as an index. An index contains a record of words, phrases, and any other information found on any web page.
Ranking: The search engine uses the information within the index for the queried search and employs the ranking of what appears first and what comes further down the list in the displayed results. This takes into serious consideration multiple facets such as keyword relevancy, site authority, quality of content, among other variables that affect user experience.
Showing search results: The search engine displays the result of the search in the SERP wherein it puts a cocktail of organic search results, paid ads featured snippets, and other more relevant information.
HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK
Search engines rely on a set of steps in crawling, indexing, and ranking for the user's relevant search results. For a more simplified explanation on how the search engines work.
Crawling: The names of spiders or crawlers are assigned to the automated programs that, in turn, crawl. These spiders surf the Internet. Some of the well known web pages are initiated by these spiders while pursuing links from those web pages to identify the links of more pages. They keep on moving ahead thus they crawl from page to page and gather information on the way. This is an approach where the maximum area of the web is to be covered.
Indexing: Crawlers visiting the web pages, while visiting they extract data about the page content, the HTML tags, keywords, and links, all these data are stored in an enormous database which is called the index. This store of information regarding web pages and content helps the search engine find any specific data just within an efficient amount of time just when a user inputs the query to be searched.
Ranking: Once the user puts up the search query, the rest will be taken care of by the ranking algorithm of the search engine. The indexing data will be analyzed and every web page would get derived relevance and importance on the basis of the query input by the user. All such factors, be it usage of keywords, quality of content, backlinks, user engagements, and many more have been considered while giving the ranking scores to a web page.
It then compiles a list of search results by ranking scores and then displays this list on the SERP. In general, such a list can include organic search results and paid ads, aside from other features like featured snippets, knowledge panels, or local search results. Simply put, it is that list which gives the most relevant information a user would need.
